Journalists who cover environmental degradation are increasingly subject to threats and attacks, according to a new Reporters without Borders investigative report, “High-Risk Subjects: Deforestation and Pollution” (PDF file). Its publication is timed to coincide with World Environment Day (June 5).
Renato Santana, a reporter for the newspaper Tribuna de Santos, has received threats of harm and is facing pressures from prosecutors in São Paulo state after publishing a series of reports showing the operation of death squads in the area of Santos, São Paulo, the Journalists Union of São Paulo reports.
A computer technician has confessed to sending false emails to 180 court judges in the state of Rio de Janeiro in the name of journalist Chico Otavio of O Globo newspaper. The messages are said to have been sent at the request of a former high-ranking judge, Roberto Wider, who resigned from his job after a series of news reports co-authored by Otavio last year accused Wider of involvement in fraudulent sentencing deals, O Globo explains.
Public Security Minister Oscar Álvarez submitted a report to congress this week about the deaths of 10 Honduran media workers, seven of whom were killed this year, El Heraldo reports.
In the first episode of a special series about violence against Mexican journalists in regions dominated by drug trafficking, CNN Mexico reports that 27 reporters have been threatened in Morelos state alone in central Mexico.
The Paraguayan Journalists' Union (SPP) says media workers in Ciudad del Este are subject to persecution, firings for political reasons, censorship, and threats, Última Hora reports. The union blames the city’s mayor and her supporters for the abuse.
Violence has made the border city of Ciudad Juárez one of the world's most dangerous cities and one of the riskiest places to practice journalism. The situation is such that several insurance companies will not sell life insurance to media workers, while others have added new surcharges to policies issued in the city, El Diario reports.
Relatives of Evaristo Ortega Zárate found the van he was driving a week ago when he is believed to have been kidnapped in Xalapa, Veracruz, the Veracruzanos.info site reports, with information from news agencies.
Prosecutors have charged two people in the kidnapping of Luis Gerardo Núñez, a reporter for the Globovisión TV network who was rescued in Caracas Friday night by police after a ransom was paid, Globovisión and El Carabobeño report. He was abducted for at least 48 hours.
The Argentine Journalism Forum (FOPEA) has published on its website an interactive map that counts 147 cases of aggression against journalists and threats to freedom of expression in the country in 2009.
José Carlos Stachowiak, host of a police program on cable TV in Ponta Grossa, Paraná, made grave threats on the air against a journalism student who wrote a blog post criticizing his work. See the video in this post Querido Leitor (Dear Reader), by local journalist Rosana Hermann.
José Alemán, a correspondent for Tiempo newspaper and Radio América, decided to leave the country after two armed men broke into his home and fired their guns in his bedroom last Sunday in the town of San Marcos, Ocotepeque, the Committee to Protect Journalists reports.